2023-10-15 13:58:30
After a fifty-year career, Jean-Claude Ellena has once once more become a diligent craftsman working with materials in his workshop with his daughter Céline. — © Frédéric Malle handout
Also read: Words to say the perfume
What was the starting point for this new creation, Heaven Can Wait?
I spontaneously came to see Frédéric Malle with an accord of iris and warm spices: cinnamon, cloves, chili pepper. In my career, I have worked a lot with lively spices such as ginger, cardamom and pepper, and which I have called “cold spices”. For this composition, I was looking for something completely different: a warm and sensual impression on the skin. I admit that I like the dry powdery character of iris with a comforting effect of talcum powder. My friend Olivier Maure, who runs the Art & Parfum company, concocted an iris infusion for me which is at the heart of the perfume.
How did Frédéric Malle react to this proposal?
His wife, Marie, perfumed herself with the sample I sent her: she fell in love with it. Frédéric liked it too. This man has a physical relationship to perfume that I have shared for a long time. What you feel today is very close to the initial proposal. Frédéric simply asked me to intensify the presence of the perfume, which does not mean its power: its presence. We also worked on the hold on the skin and that’s all. Things happened as simply as I describe them to you. The entire creative process took place over the phone.
How do you view this creation in all of your work?
As the creation progressed, I realized that I was revolving around one of the great perfumes that were engraved in my memory: L’Origan by François Coty. Without me ever intending it, Heaven Can Wait is like a summary of all the perfumes I’ve loved, notably Après l’Ondée by Guerlain. I revolve endlessly around a few chords and a few major subjects. I realize, for example, that ionones – predominantly floral, powdery, warm molecules – are a kind of furrow that I have been tracing since my beginnings.
What type of relationship do you have with Frédéric Malle?
We met at Givaudan-Roure: I was a perfumer there and Frédéric was a salesman. A kind of intimacy has slowly been created between us over the years. I am, with Dominique Ropion, the perfumer who has signed the most perfumes for his house: Heaven Can Wait is the sixth following Cologne Bigarade, Angéliques sous la montagne, Bigarade Concéenne, L’Eau d’Hiver and Rose & Cuir. We defend author’s perfumery which allows the perfumer to give free rein to his creativity and which recognizes perfume as an artistic work.
What do you like regarding this new creation?
I arrived at precisely what I had in my head. This perfume contains opposites that love each other: sweet and dry, hot and cold. We feel it coming from afar without it ever hitting our nostrils. It’s a fragrance that appeals without being stubborn. I have always liked this idea and I am continuing in this direction. I gave it to my grandson’s girlfriend who is 21: she wears it every morning. It reassured me in a sense to know that I wasn’t making old perfumes for old schnobs like me (laughter).
You set up your creative laboratory with your daughter Céline, also a perfumer. What does Atelier Ellena look like, located in the small village of Spéracèdes near you?
You would be disappointed! There is nothing spectacular. It is a light structure: there are two of us. Neither secretary nor laboratory assistant: we weigh our formulas ourselves. Just a table, a scale and a refrigerator to store the raw materials. We focus on creation and only on creation.
From your position as a creator, what is your view on the perfume market?
Today’s perfumery is sorely lacking in nuance. It’s purely performative perfumery. There is a general obsession with these woody amber molecules (Amber Xtrem, Ambrocenide) which have invaded the profession because they provide projection and hold on the skin. Their systematic use gives scents that are not necessarily very distinguished, which I associate with the image of concrete.
I wondered if a perfumer had an ideal perfume in mind, a sort of holy grail following which he chased all his life?
I wouldn’t say that! It’s more that I seek to move forward without a more specific goal than to compose perfumes that provoke an emotion. I’m a perseverant, I’m not the type who gives up. When I go up to the lab every morning, I feel immense joy. There’s a light that comes on inside me. I am always amazed that it has lasted so long.
Heaven Can Wait, Frédéric Malle perfume editions.
1697383785
#JeanClaude #Ellena #nose #Todays #perfumery #lacks #nuance
